


Closure

by DogTown



Category: The Thing (1982)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 15:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16161383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DogTown/pseuds/DogTown
Summary: All that They wanted to do was belong.





	Closure

**Author's Note:**

> Where did the Thing come from? What kind of life had it lived?
> 
> The Thing in this story refers to itself as the collective "they", switching to "They" once it amasses enough intelligence that it sees itself as a higher creature and so names itself as that.
> 
> The idea behind this story is to set the Thing into a sort of Frankenstien's monster sort of mindset.

They could have existed for millennia, searching around in the dark recesses of the universe. Back before complex beings pumped through its veins, back before memories even began to be encoded in its very cells. Just a small lump, tasting things one at a time, taking in just enough to keep its own body alive and adapt to its environment.

 

How long had this blissful existence lasted? They didn’t know, and it made them angry. Those days or months or eons were gone and could never come back. Knowledge was a curse that weighed heavily on their soul, if they even had a soul.

 

The first eyes had inflicted blinding pain, but also endless joy. What was the creature that had the first eyes? They didn’t know- couldn’t know- for before then they couldn’t see. Once it was part of them, their world changed. It opened up just enough for them to _want_ , for them to _need_ , and they desperately craved more.

  
Each new creature tasted gave more and more refinement. Vision changed from a simple variation of dark and light to shapes, to figures, to colors. Locomotion, which had before been the most basic of an amorphous blob reaching out tiny, globby fingers, now included small complex limbs. They could walk, and every step took them towards new abilities, if they could catch them.

 

At first they would scream in exhalation, a cacophony of sounds that had no meaning or pattern. To scream was a new trait, to scream was to do something they had never done before. Over time they learned new sounds, yet this situation proved frustrating. There had to be more, there had to be meaning, there had to be _something_ in these screeches and purrs. Driven by the desire for more, they looked even higher and higher for answers.

 

These animals, these unknowns, they became more and more complicated, which is what They wanted. As the creatures got bigger, their social structures became more complicated, and They desperately tried to understand how to fit in to this world. No matter how many things tasted, no matter how many memories consumed, it just wasn’t working.

 

They needed something bigger, They needed something that could help Them understand Themselves. They ached, They thirsted, and They hooked and clawed everything in sight to get what They wanted.

 

It might have worked.

 

The languages of all those previously tasted were primitive and lacking in abstractness. The first time They tasted a truly intelligent species, it was ecstasy. Words and gestures and knowledge flowed through Their veins, giving light to all those frustrated halfthoughts that had built up since They could first comprehend the idea of thinking. They could communicate, and with a species that could understand, and They wanted to _know_! What were They? Where did They come from? Where did They belong?

 

The eyes had been like the eyes of a thousand others, the look of fear, the sense of otherness. All They wanted to do was to belong, but the others knew that this couldn’t be the case. If these animals would just _listen_ , but they did not. The creatures didn’t see an intelligent equal begging for answers about itself, about the world, about the universe. No, they saw a monster that had to be stopped.

 

Claws and teeth were painful, fire was deadly, but the rejection is what hurt the most. Screaming in terror, They ran in fear and shame. No matter where They tried to hide, They would always be followed by the distraught animals that They had tried to copy, that They had tried to _communicate_ with. It didn’t matter that They could change Themselves to look and sound the same, what mattered was that inside They were unlike anything else. And no one could stand for this.

 

How They managed to get away was a blur. It had happened so quickly, with the threat of flaming death gnashing so closely at Their heels, that even in Their multitude they could not quite remember. Hurting, bleeding, and desperate, They took control of the hijacked ship and steered it towards the farthest corner of existence. Maybe then They could be free, to live out Their lives in solitude, to die on Their own terms.

 

It might have worked.

 

Cold, cold, burning ice that would have been mercy if it could actually kill Them. But it couldn’t, instead it pushed Them into a dark tomb, waiting to be opened. The only mercy could be if the nearby star died before someone pried open the icy coffin lid, and that was all They could hope for.

 

Slumber was a bandage concealing the wound of consciousness, and it was unceremoniously ripped off much too soon. The pain and agony of waking into the horrible world was more than They could take. Fear and anger burned inside of Them, fueling a hatred filled rampage as They struck and consumed and took everything that They could.

 

Nothing could stop Them from their goal. They no longer reached out for help, They no longer wanted a voice, They no longer wanted to _understand_. They just wanted to leave, and They would kill anything in Their way to do it.


End file.
